Omniva to Compete for Lithuania’s Universal Postal Service Contract
Omniva’s Lithuanian subsidiary, Omniva LT UAB, is entering the tender to become the country’s next universal postal service operator. With this move, Omniva aims to strengthen its Baltic presence, challenge the market monopoly, and drive much-needed reforms to secure a sustainable future for postal services in the Baltic region.
The universal postal service (USO) is a state-guaranteed minimum-level postal service that must be available to all residents at an affordable price. In practice, this means the delivery of letters and small parcels domestically and internationally in cooperation with other USO service providers.).
In most countries, USO providers are chosen through public tenders, but usually only the state-owned incumbent applies, as few rivals have the network or appetite for a loss-making service. In Lithuania, that has meant Lithuania Post has been the sole participant so far, holding the contract until the end of 2026.
“Post is a declining business across all Western countries, but Omniva has decades of experience delivering universal service. We believe the key to sustainability is combining postal and parcel networks. In Lithuania, we have a postal license since 2006, a wide network, automated sorting center, and years of market experience. Entering the USO tender is the next logical step,” said Martti Kuldma, Chairman of Omniva’s Management Board.
The Lithuanian USO market was worth €13.6 million in 2024 but, like elsewhere in Europe, remains loss-making due to declining mail volumes. To offset this, the state compensates the provider — and, from 2025, Lithuania will allow parcel locker and shop networks to be used in USO delivery. The next USO period for which tender is opening now will be 2027–2035.
“Logistics is a volume business. The additional USO volumes from Lithuania would strengthen Omniva’s position in the Baltics and make our operations – sorting, distribution networks more efficient to improve the Group’s overall profitability even though the service itself comes to a zero,” Kuldma explained. “Providing universal service in multiple countries could also allow us to optimize operations, such as combining letter sorting, making the service more sustainable in both countries.”
In recent years, USO has become a hot debate across all Europe, as declining mail volumes make the traditional model increasingly loss-making. Denmark has gone as far as ending USO altogether by 2025. Omniva wants to be a trailblazer in making the postal sector more
sustainable in the Baltic region. Omniva sees Lithuania’s tender as a chance to kickstart a Baltic-wide discussion on the future of postal services, even raising the possibility of one provider consolidating USO across the region to optimize costs and ensure efficiency.
“For Lithuanians, competition in postal services is good news. Competition improves quality, lowers prices, and drives innovation — outcomes that monopolies rarely deliver,” Martti Kuldma noted.
In Lithuania, the USO tender also determines the national distributor of periodicals — unlike Estonia, which organizes separate tenders.
The deadline for submitting documents for participation to the Lithuanian regulator is October 13, 2025. To qualify, Omniva must prove that by the end of 2026, it has a sufficient network in Lithuania to provide universal postal services. The date when the Lithuanian regulator will appoint the UPS provider for the 2027–2035 period has not yet been announced.